Monday, April 08, 2013

After many months of planning and promotion, Canadian Parents for French – Manitoba, along with 100NONS and l’Université de Saint-Boniface (USB) were proud to present the 2nd edition of le Festival jeune artiste du Manitoba (Festival JAM) April 6 and 7, 2013 at USB! This exciting Manitoban Idol style event was organized to give youth in grades 6 to 12 currently enrolled in Basic French or the Immersion program the opportunity to take their French outside of the classroom and use it in a completely different environment.

Judges Renée Lamoureux (Keith and Renée), Jocelyne Baribeau (Madame Diva) and David Grenon (Francossins, Jetstream) had a difficult weekend ahead of them which was full of talented participants. Auditions started Saturday, April 6, where the judges were able to name the top 8 finalists who would move on to the finals on Sunday. Not only did those 8 finalists move on to Sunday’s performance, they were also able to participate in a one hour vocal workshop with Nadia Gaudet, a professional singer and vocal coach, to help them give their best performance the next day.

Sunday began with individual 30 minute rehearsal sessions for the finalists to practice with a live band accompanying them. The band was made up of Darren Savard, Joel Couture, Marc Arnould and Daniel Roy. It immediately became clear that everyone who was attending the finals would be in for a spectacular performance from each finalist that afternoon. Each of the finalists were very excited to showcase their talent as well, and that sentiment ran throughout the entire afternoon. Backstage after each performance, finalists congratulated each other on a job well done with high fives all around.

CPF-MB, 100NONS and USB would like to congratulate everyone who registered to participate in this exciting event as it takes a lot of courage to be confident enough to get up and sing in a different language in front of not only judges, but over 200 spectators who attended on Sunday. Also, a special congratulations goes out to our winners:

-Erika Fowler, 3rd place winner ($250 prize and Festival JAM plaque)

-Amber Landry, 2nd place winner ($500 prize and Festival JAM plaque)

-Nolan De Leon, 1st place winner and new Jeune artiste du Manitoba ($1000 prize and Festival JAM trophy. Nolan also took home the $200 prize for crowd favourite!)

To read the write up that appeared in La Liberté, please follow the link below: